Tangimoana


At Tangimoana, estuary of the Rangitikei river on the West Coast of the North Island, Aotearoa New Zealand, fresh water meets the South Pacific sea. We begin here, where the river branches into a tidal estuary, depositing silt, metals, plant matter, minerals, agri-chemicals, silica, hormone residues and traces of industrial waste, alongside seaweed, corals, fish, and other organisms. Tangimoana is a short distance south of the estuary where the Whanganui river - recently assigned the legal rights of a human being, in recognition of its sacred status for the local Māori people - meets the sea. Travelling up the coast between Tangimoana and the Whanganui estuary the beaches darken, as volcanic minerals accumulate, washed inland from the seabed and flowing out of rivers and tributaries carrying material from the volcanoes, lava plateaus and crater lakes in the central North Island.

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